1901-S Barber Half Dollar

The reason it was cheap is because it has been cleaned, but market acceptable IMO. Everyone wants original examples rather than cleaned ones even if they are market acceptable. People will pay large amounts for Barber coins with original surfaces because there are so few. Most are cleaned harshly, or have a market acceptable cleaning.

You certainly have every right to collect exactly as it makes you happy. I, and others, offer suggestions on what we do, which you may or may not find suitable for yourself.

But on the subject of 1901-S Barber half dollars, there are over 200 of them on ebay right now. There is a beautiful original NGC F-12 for $10 dollars more than you paid - $145.00, as one example.

With the money you do show that you spend I would much rather have fewer coins and nicer examples. Buying 20-30, or more, coins per month gets the juices flowing when you get to unwrap new coins almost every day. I'm thinking most of us did that in our beginning purchases (especially when ebay actually had auctions). At least I did.

But for me, I've come to the point where I only buy coins that I absolutely love. Coins that I will always feel bad about if I missed them. As long as they are within a fair market range, or sometimes even over. Some coins really are very difficult or impossible to replace, as you well know.

So when I see the amounts you pay each time you show us a new coin, and you are rightly proud of most of those purchases, I still feel like I'd love to see you take a months worth of spending on a single killer coin. If you do it a couple of times, you won't need to open packages too often to enjoy your collection. It becomes less about the arrival of the coins, and more about the hunt for beautiful metal.

I was curious about the NGC f12 coin selling for $145 and I decided to check it out. It is overgraded. That coin only had one letter in LIBERTY complete - the L. Most of the letters are missing. The coin in this thread has almost the entire LIBERTY lettering visible with just tbe R incomplete, maybe the B although it shows nicely. I think that NGC coin is vg10.

There were 3 other f12 stabbed coins. One was an NGC coin selling for ~$168. That one had no letters in LIBERTY legible. There was a PCGS coin selling for $275 which was wiped with hairlines in the fields. The other PCGS f12 was nice and priced right at $255.

Scarce doesn't mean rare. A 1909-S VDB Lincoln is scarce but you can find hundreds of them for sale on ebay. Certainly there are more of those around than 1901-S Barber halves.

These days, coins don't have to be expensive for me to like them.

with everything moxking explained to you . You have to understand we are trying to help you NOT degrade you .I understand that you feel you know what your doing .Ok fine ,but when you receive two or more negative response's on any one post ,it would be in your best interest to at least listen to what other members are saying about a good portion of your purchase's .

Late to the party, indeed a very tough date. Agree with your F15 grade and certainly it doesn't look chalky white in hand like the pictures (on my monitor), but very high chance it has been cleaned.

I hope you get a pleasant surprise when it arrives in the mail. There's been a lot of good advice given already, and when I bought similar coins early on -- I found when trying to resell when a better coin came along -- that's when the 'tuition' bill came due. At least that's what I called the price of learning: tuition.

Keep on posting! This forum is the most tame, helpful and friendly I've ever come across.

Thanks for coming back and sharing your thoughts.

This one came in and it looks a little different from the pictures in the listing. Looks like seller had a searchlight trained on the coin when he was photographing it. Thoughts?

You've certainly proven that the photographs we rely on for making a grading and eye appeal determination are sometimes distinctly different than the coin in hand.

I can't honestly say that your in-hand photos tell me much more than did the first two photos from the seller.

The circulation patterns are accurate, the monotone coloration in both photos hints at a dip. The field wear is also good for a F-15 coin. Which is where I'd put it for circulation.

But I'll not comment on eye appeal, as all those photos are discouraging.

But as in all things - it's your coin, your money, and your choice. If you love the coin, that's really all that counts.

If you don't love the coin, I hope you have a return option.

From your photos I am not seeing any hairlines from improper cleaning. F15